‘It was very long’: Jen Psaki describes Biden reading Trump’s letter in the Oval Office
‘Oh, did he leave me a letter?’ Joe Biden asked press secretary Jen Psaki
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Your support makes all the difference.White House press secretary Jen Psaki revealed that she was in the Oval Office when Joe Biden read the outgoing letter from predecessor Donald Trump.
"It was long, it was very long," she said during a podcast with West Wing actor Rob Lowe, who played a speechwriter in the popular political series.
Ms Psaki recalled that first day in the White House telling Biden the press would likely ask about the traditional letter left by the outgoing president.
"And he said, ‘oh, did he leave me a letter’, and I was like, am I telling him he was left a letter? I don’t know OK," she recalled. "So I said, I think so. I think, I think that’s what happened. So he kind of looked around for the letter."
Mr Biden found the letter in the drawer of the Resolute Desk, according to reporting by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book, Peril. They added that Mr Biden put the letter in his pocket, without sharing its contents, before "his attention turned to the virus".
Ms Psaki recalled that Mr Biden read the lengthy missive silently while she waited, "which was just kind of a remarkable moment"
"No, he didn’t read aloud. He read it to himself. And he is such a classy guy," she said. "He didn’t even convey it to us in that moment of what the letter said, he kind of read the letter, consumed it himself.”
What she did see, however, was the handwriting. "The script from where I could see was very lovely, but I don’t know what was in the letter," she added.
Mr Biden has refused to reveal the contents of the letter, saying only that it was "very generous" while adding he wouldn’t talk about the private letter unless he first discussed it with Mr Trump.
Mr Trump himself has said in interviews that it’s was up to Mr Biden to reveal the full detail.
“Basically I wished him luck and, you know, it was a couple of pages long and it was from the heart because I want to see him do well," Mr Trump said last year in an interview with Lisa Booth.
After telling the podcast host that he was sincere in wishing Mr Biden luck, Mr Trump quickly pivoted to unproven claims that Mr Biden was not legitimately elected.
"Look, he’s there. It was a rigged election, an election that you know, I would never concede and by the way, Hillary Clinton said he should never concede. Hillary Clinton, the things she said were so horrible,” Mr Trump said.
“But you know what, he’s there, and I want him to do well.”
The letter will ultimately enter the public record in the National Archives and Records Administration as part of The Presidential Records Act.
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